Some three weeks ago, the Chinese-language Merdekareview.com celebrated its second anniversary. Sharing the joy of this auspicious occasion, I could not help worrying at some unpleasant scenarios in recent days.

As far as the Chinese community is concerned, many are those who relish in venting their frustrations and resentment, either through the Internet or the print media, while very few are genuinely interested in dialogue and discourse in a serious manner.

At a societal level, it is more than apparent that much of the Malay community is yet to embrace the public arena cherished by others. For instance, Malaysiakini is doing extremely well in terms of its English version, while its Chinese edition is not too far behind. Alas, the same cannot be said of the Malay version, one of the indicators being the small volume of letters to the editor there.

Zainuddin Maidin, our information minister who I often suspect is a Joseph Goebbels* in disguise, has of late landed a few heavy punches against The Sun. Such classless act is utterly unpalatable to me, yet the crucial question remains: how is the liberal-oriented publication to win the favour of the Malay community?

Put differently, is an interactive and communicative public sphere in sight in Malaysia?

On this, I have been greatly influenced by Jrgen Habermas, an esteemed sociologist whose seminal work is none other than The Structural Transformation of the Public Spehere (Strukturwendel der ffentlichkeit), published in 1962. The book sort of escaped the attention of the global academia until the eventful era of the late 1980s, when both Europe and the United States began to ponder on a world without the Soviet Union.

Some abstract idea

In this book, Habermas argues that individual opinion can hardly constitute the public sphere if it is not derived through a process of opinion formation. In other words, the emergence of the public sphere is only possible when people are engaged in rational and communicative acts of dialogue and discourse.

Others have contested that "public sphere" as the English term for "ffentlichkeit" is a misnomer*. However, my understanding is that the renowned German sociologist does intend to concretize the concept of "ffentlichkeit", rather than playing with some abstract idea of the public.

For instance, Habermas refers to the coffee house in England as an ideal arena in which everyone had an equal right to speak, as it represented "the wider strata of the middle class, including craftsmen and shopkeepers", where the public life took place. As for Germany, various societies should strive to bring about critical and rational discourse in a public sphere that would comprise of persons of unequal social status.

Since the tragic incident of September 11 in 2001, many western countries with sizeable Muslim populations have begun to doubt the long-term sustainability of multiculturalism, having been in practice since the end of World War II.

The Sddeutsche Zeitung once had an interview with Habermas, in which the theorist of communicative action confessed that his public sphere theory was premised on the assumption that Germany remained in a relatively homogeneous social milieu in terms of race, language, religion and culture. It was therefore a daunting challenge for the nation to induce the Muslim community, which is imbued with pronounced and strong religio-political ideology, to take part in this sphere for critical yet rational debate, a task that was not to be delegated to others.

In 2004, the Neue Zrcher Zeitung of Switzerland published the speech of thanks* by Habermas, who had been recently awarded the Kyoto Prize in acknowledgement of his academic contribution. In the speech, entitled Open Space and Political Public ffentlicher Raum und politische ffentlichkeit , Habermas shared with the audience his experience of fighting against illnesses throughout his life. The physical suffering has indeed prompted him to reflect on the critical issues around the world.

As he sees it, there are two types of the public that are rather different from one another. In our media society, the public serves those who are there to express themselves through an open space, but also those who seek to engage in political, scholarly or literary discussion. As far as the latter is concerned, the public that is created is not a space for audience, but an arena between the speaker and the listener for question and answer.

(Dafr ist eine Unterscheidung zwischen zwei Typen von ffentlichkeit hilfreich. In unserer Mediengesellschaft dient die ffentlichkeit denen, die Prominenz erlangen, als Raum der Selbstdarstellung... Einen anderen Zweck hat die Beteiligung an politischen, wissenschaftlichen oder literarischen Auseinandersetzungen... In diesem Fall bildet das Publikum keinen Raum von Zuschauern oder Zuhrern, sondern den Raum fr Sprecher und Adressaten, die einander Rede und Antwort stehen.)

Quality of debate

Interestingly, as he reiterates his lifelong dedication to working on "the public as an interactive and communicative space" (ffentlichkeit als Raum des vernnftigen kommunikativen Umgangs miteinander is das Thema, das mich ein Leban lang beschftigt hat), Habermas also makes it clear that "there is no blurring between the public and the private spheres, as theirs is a complementary relationship" ("ffentlichkeit und Privatsphre verwischen sich nicht, sondern treten in ein komplementres Verhltnis").

Be it the coffeehouse, the salon or societies, what the public sphere values is not the unequal status among the participants, but the quality of debate, precisely the reason why I do not think the random venting and ranting on the Internet is conducive in engendering public life.

Should it persist, it may play into the hand of politicians with populist agenda, either DAP or MCA. The recent outcry over the Negarakuku episode and the defensiveness on the part of the Chinese community is a case in point.

On the other hand, there is a greater challenge ahead as Malaysia is struggling to expand the narrow space for rational and critical debate now that the powerful but exclusivistic Muslim/Malay forces, represented predominantly by the conservative side of PAS and Umno, who insist on their "uniqueness" and "special position", appear to be least willing to respond to the calls for dialogue by the non-Muslims/Malays. Some have even sought to demonise and stigmatise this very precious public sphere that we have.

Habermas continues to work for a public sphere in which the weak minorities could have their voices heard and their experiences brought closer to the host society even as he feels age catching up, saying: "We humans learn from each otherand that can only be made possible in an open space of a culturally stimulating milieu" ( Wir Menschen lernen voneinander... und das ist nur im ffentlichen Raum eines kulturel anregenden Milieus mglich).

But when, really, will we have a rational and open space that goes beyond race, creed, and relgion in Malaysia?